I cannot tell you
how the light comes,
but that it does.
That it will…

(“How the Light Comes,” by Jan Richardson, in Ten Poems for Difficult Times, 2018)

A note from Sharon:  To those of you reading this post:  It is difficult to find the words that capture this extraordinary time we are now experiencing—no one has been immune to the crises triggered by this world pandemic, and for the foreseeable future, our lives will continue to be affected, our daily habits changed, by the impact of the corona virus.  It is a worrisome time—and for any of us who are in the “higher risk” categories, it is difficult to escape the underlying anxiety that seems to invade one’s daily life.  What gives us solace?  Offers hope? A few years ago, I wrote this blog post which follows, reflecting on the importance of our spiritual lives.  Whatever that life involves, it’s certain that Life’s hardships thrust us into what can only be defined as a deeply spiritual journey.  As we all deal with the impact of the corona virus on our lives, our loved ones, and how our lives will be change because of it, I offer this week’s post, originally published in the early part of 2014. 

._ . _ . _ . _

A few years ago, when I was living in San Diego, I participated in a workshop on contemplative practices that could enrich our lives.  My part in it was to invite the participants to consider the spiritual practice inherent in writing.  Like so many Americans, I’ve been a lapsed church-goer for the better part of my adult life, finding I craved a deeper spiritual practice to sustain my daily life than the Sunday morning services.   I had dabbled with other religious traditions, tried to learn meditation, but still, I couldn’t make anything work for me.  What I hadn’t realized is that I had already had the tools to deepen my spiritual life—writing.  I had always written, and during the years of a soul shattering time in early adulthood, writing was a refuge, my port in the storm, a virtual sanctuary.  I just hadn’t thought of it as having the potential become my regular spiritual practice.

Within a year after returning to California from Toronto,  I was confronted  with the first of a series of losses and unexpected life changes beginning with my father’s death from lung cancer, and followed by mother’s descent into Alzheimer’s, the onerous and painful  task of downsizing a dying nonprofit, an unexpected diagnosis of early stage breast cancer, and my mother’s death.  In the aftermath of my first husband’s drowning a decade earlier, writing had become a refuge, a lifesaver I clung to through those turbulent times.  Writing not only helped me cope, but ultimately, became an important daily routine.  As my writing practice solidified and deepened, it became a fundamental part of my spiritual life.

My writing grew to become a daily ritual and meditation, something I practiced early each morning before the outside world intervened to pull me into its noisy demands.  Its place in my spiritual life has only solidified over the years; it is a regular practice that begins in the stillness of early morning when I first open the pages of my notebook, the same leather-bound journal I’ve written in for years.  Like the dawn of each new day, a new page awaits, blank and inviting—reminding me now, as I write, of Rita Dove’s words in her poem, “Dawn Revisited:” the whole sky is yours/ to write on, blown open/ to a blank page…”   I have no agenda when I first begin writing, no expectation. I begin with one small observation, something I notice in the present moment—the fog lifting from the canyon floor, a trio of hummingbirds at the garden fountain, the red-tailed hawk’s wings spread as he glides just beyond our deck—whatever captures my attention.  Sometimes, a haiku poem emerges; other times, what I describe is enough to trigger a memory or a feeling that begs to be written.  It hardly matters.  What matters is that I write, embracing the solitude of the morning, intertwining the external world with my internal one, going deeper into whatever I’m exploring on the page, writing myself into “knowing.”

Writing is my meditation and my prayer.  It opens me, ensures I am “paying attention” to what is before me, what is inside me. It informs my intentions for each day and ultimately, the work I do with others, helping them express and explore the material of their lives in writing.  While writing might become become a spiritual practice for anyone, as it is for me, so can art, music, dance, yoga, T’ai Chi, meditation, and prayer—anything that takes us into the quiet contemplation and deeper parts of ourselves.  As Thomas Merton wrote, “Art enables us to find ourselves and and lose ourselves at the same time.”

One’s spirituality is not dependent on a specific religious belief or theology.  We all have spiritual needs and yearnings.  What matters is that we find a way to nurture them, that we feed our souls as well as our bodies and minds.  In times of hardship, life-threatening illness, or other suffering, it’s often our spiritual lives that keep us from losing hope, that keep us whole.  As New York Times editor, Dana Jennings, diagnosed with an aggressive prostate cancer, wrote in his blog, “One Man’s Cancer,” our spiritual lives sustain us through life’s most challenging chapters:

I am not a fool. I am a patient with Stage T3B cancer and a Gleason score of 9. I need the skills and the insights of the nurses and doctors who care for me. But they don’t treat the whole man. Medicine cares about physical outcomes, not the soul. I also need — even crave — the spiritual antibodies of prayer, song and sacred study.

A cancer diagnosis is not something any of us want.  It can feel like a death sentence, and it may challenge your faith,  casting doubt on all that you believed was right and true.  But while cancer—and many other painful experiences– may seem like a dark night of the soul and challenge your faith,  it may also offer you the chance to explore your spirituality,  deepening your self-understanding and compassion for others.  It’s something I witness again and again in the expressive writing groups I lead:  a time to explore and deepen one’s understanding and compassion, an opportunity to define what is essential and important in life, and gratitude and appreciation for the ordinary gifts in each day we have.  As one cancer survivor wrote, “The community I am building with my fellow writers …is… a form of spirituality.”

Through the exchange of stories, we help heal each other’s spirits…Isn’t this what a spiritual life is about?–Patrice Vecchione, Writing and the Spiritual Life

Life’s hardships thrust us into what can only be defined as a deeply spiritual journey.  We may kick and scream, rail against the injustices of those events, but like it or not, we’re forced to re-examine our lives in ways we have not, perhaps, done before.  We begin to pay attention, really pay attention, to what truly matters to us—and to our lives.

“At a certain point you say to the woods, to the sea, to the mountains, the world~ now I am ready. Now I will stop and be wholly attentive. You empty yourself and wait, listening.– Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk, 1982.

Varda, who wrote with me for the last two years of her life, died of metastatic breast cancer several years ago.  She wrote honestly about her cancer experience, her fears and her hopes, sometimes poignantly, sometimes humorously, but always honestly, voicing, so many times, what others were afraid to express.  Near the final weeks of her life, she wrote a poem entitled “Faith,” that described her spiritual re-examination during her cancer treatment:

…My cancer has challenged my faith,

and I have found an incredible well I did not know I had. 

I have found true surrender,

 enormous peace.

I have come home to God, and we have renewed

our friendship.

(From:  “Faith,” by Varda Nowack Goldstein, in A Healing Journey:  Writing Together Through Breast Cancer, 2004).

Varda was thrust into a journey that can bring anyone to their knees, but her honesty, her willingness to plumb the deepest parts of her experience and write so honestly about her life, cancer and faith were humbling and inspiration to us all.   Her stories were, I’m certain, strengthening her “spiritual antibodies”—not a cure, but courage to face and, not unimportantly, help loved ones face her inevitable death with grace, love, and even shared laughter.  Surely this was evidence and testimony to the depth and importance of Varda’s spiritual life, and something, whatever form it takes, we all need to navigate difficult and challenging times.

And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye
clear.  What we need is here.

From: “The Wild Geese,” by Wendell Berry, The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry, 1999)

Writing Suggestions:

• Reflect on what nourishes your spiritual life.
• What practices or rituals have helped sustain you during cancer, other hardships, losses or struggle?
• Where have you found your solace, your strength, your source of “spiritual antibodies?”
• In this time of the corona virus pandemic, write about the spiritual practices most important to you.